Lawrence Durrell - Judith

As he spoke, he whipped one of the flaps of a lorry and disclosed a load of Teller mines, signal wire, barbed wire, pistols and signal flares. Aaron stared at him aghast. He could not speak. The Scotsman winked at him laboriously and patted his arm. At the next lorry and the next he repeated the performance. Aaron gaped after him like an idiot, looking up hesitantly into his face as each new gesture revealed a load of valuable military equipment.

“All this stuff,” said Macdonald sotto voce , “has been written off as stolen by marauders. I need say no more.”

They walked back in silence to the perimeter, where the guard saluted with a clash and thump of heels. “Very well then,” said Macdonald. “I shall send the column down to you in one hour under a colour sergeant. He will know what to do. I hope you will too.” Again he winked.

Aaron’s handclasp was eloquent. He started his engine and leaned back to wave to the Scotsman. “Thank you,” he cried.

And so the defensive plans of Ras Shamir were entirely reshaped throughout that afternoon and evening, thanks to the lucky gift of arms. They could now afford to think in terms of the small shallow minefield; they could mount machine guns on their tractors; they could even afford to envisage a small corps of well-armed grenadiers using Mills bombs…

All the rest of that day they worked, unloading the lorries and sending them back to Macdonald; regrouping their stocks of munitions; digging and plotting and wiring, while Pete sat in her room with head bent to the little radio, listening to the floods of incoherent threats and ravings pouring in on them from the countries surrounding the pathetic little state which had just been born. No one could guess whether this step-child of persecution and intolerance would survive.

David stood in the doorway. “Is it true she has arrived back?”

Pete switched off and nodded. “Yes. By the way, I’ve told the mountain boys — Brisbane and Brooklyn and Manchester — that we now have flares to signal them for reinforcements.”

“Good,” he said. “Where is she?”

“On a washing fatigue, as far as I know,” said Pete.

David turned aside and slipped down the long staircase into the compound; he set off with long strides towards the river, whence he could hear the clear voices of women singing as they washed the camp clothes by the river and hung them on the bushes to dry.

She saw him from a longish way off and rose quickly, drying her hands; she set off to meet him, feeling shy and uneasy. She did not want to greet him before the other women. They walked smiling towards each other now, their own reflections riding in the waters below them; and as he came closer she saw that it was a different David, for he had changed immensely. Was it simply that men flourish on danger and anxiety? His moustache had gone, and with it the sombre impression of weight, of inner concealed sadness, a well of moroseness. He had become thinner, too, and his features were purer and more clear-cut. He still wore the old jackboots with the ends of his trousers tucked into them. But now he wore a close-fitting jacket and a scarf at his throat. Last but not least, for the first time he openly wore a pistol at his hip. His bearing too was new — purposeful and self-confident; he had lost the old diffidence. He walked swiftly across the tracks between the meadows and muddy pools, with their giant water lilies floating in eddies, moving as if they were alive — taking long, rapid strides towards her.

“Well, you have picked your time,” he said and, before she knew where she was, his arms were around her. He embraced her with complete certainty now, and firmly, expecting her response to be as warm. It was. All the inner barriers seemed to have subsided, freeing her. They kissed each other as if all at once they had gone mad. She tried to speak, but even a simple sentence was breathlessly swept away by the chaotic punctuation of their embraces.

“I tried… so much wanted… but I wanted so much…

He paused only to say “Hush” in a whisper, and again “Hush”; and slowly sinking to their knees, they lay at last in the long grass by the river, helplessly at peace though their bodies still struggled for expression. For a long time after making love they lay like effigies. Then David turned on a sleepy elbow and plucked a bit of grass to put between her teeth.

“I knew it would be like this,” he said.

“I hoped it would,” she replied, her eyes still closed.

He stared at her for a long time, and then bent to kiss her once more; he rose to his feet and stared at his watch.

“Grete,” he said, sinking down briefly on one knee. “I have a job to do now. I must leave you. But tonight I’ll come to you.”

And, without waiting for an answer, he embraced her briefly and was gone, walking swiftly along the river towards the head springs and the narrow valley which led to Jordan. She turned her head to follow his progress for a moment; then she set off towards the kibbutz.

At the entrance to the first ravine from which the Jordan rushed, blue-green and ice-cold, there was an old ruined mill, built at some time during the Middle Ages and long since fallen into decay. This was to be an observation point and, thanks to the gift of arms from the retiring British, Aaron had now decided to man it with a patrol of three scouts and a light machine gun. Here they would first be in contact with any intruder into the valley; and the kibbutz would certainly hear any exchange of fire.

David climbed the rocky side of the ravine and, with a long sliding run, came to the entrance of the mill in time to hear old Karam shout with a chuckle:

“Halt, who goes there?”

The whiskered Yemeni emerged from the shadows among the ruins chuckling, followed by the two blonde boys from Sweden.

“Everything okay?” said David, and followed them into the shadowy room which echoed the sound of the current thumping against the stone walls. The machine gun stood in an embrasure covering the end of the ravine.

“Good,” he said. “Good. Now listen, no heroism from you three; I don’t expect any action from you, simply a signal of engagement. Then make your way back. Fire a green signal. But please make sure it is an enemy and not a flock of sheep or something like that.”

Everyone grinned, and old Karam permitted himself a raucous chuckle. It was a capital joke. A few more orders given and discussed, a few trials of the little weapon’s powers of traverse, and David set off once more for the kibbutz. None of them had noticed the three silent robed figures on the cliff edge above, who, without sound or movement, studied the position and counted the number of its defenders.

Grete had dozed off, despite her intention to stay awake and wait for him; it must have been around midnight when she awoke with a start, to see his naked body outlined against the square of light where the window was.

“David,” she whispered softly in the silence and he moved swiftly to her side.

“It has started in the south,” he said. “Jerusalem is besieged and they are fighting at the Jaffa Gate and in Gaza.”

He had put his Sten gun in the corner and his revolver on the table beside the blue bowl of cyclamen. She sat up and felt his strong arms around her.

“What about us?” she said.

David began to kiss her softly and thoughtfully on the throat, the cheek, the breast. Then he said:

“Our turn will come when the British pull out of the valley; until then we are safe. After that…

He pulled her slowly down beside him on the bed and said in a tone which was almost exultant, “Think; we have so much time before us; and now everything is coming right, just as I thought it might, thought it would; you, Israel, everything!”